


Sunrise

by NarryMusings



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, of sunrises on Christmas morning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-12
Updated: 2016-12-12
Packaged: 2018-09-08 04:10:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8829988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NarryMusings/pseuds/NarryMusings
Summary: Three times Niall witnesses his daughter bonding with Harry over sunsets on Christmas morning.





	

Five.

He wakes to an empty bed, which is new. He hasn’t slept in a bed by himself in years.

The other side of the bed is still warm, though, which means that he hasn’t been alone for very long. (Which Niall still takes a relief, if he’s being honest.)

He checks the time on his phone, groans out loud when he realizes that it’s only 7:45. It’s simultaneously later than he wakes up during the week to start getting Olivia ready for school, and much earlier than he’d planned on getting up on Christmas morning.

He pulls the duvet off of himself, swings his legs over the side of the bed, and then pushes himself to his feet. His feet slap against the hardwood floor beneath him, echoing around the otherwise silent bedroom, as he makes his way across the room – and then further, all the way down the hallway. He peeks inside Olivia’s bedroom to find her bed empty as well. It’s a little strange, he thinks, but it doesn’t worry him. In fact, it only confuses him more.

He finds them both – his five year-old daughter and his year-long boyfriend, Harry – sitting on the bench out on the front porch. They’re both bundled up, all winter jackets and fuzzy hats, with a blanket draped over the both of them. Olivia is sitting up on Harry’s lap, the back of her head resting back against Harry’s shoulder whilst he holds her close to his chest. It’s so cold out that Niall can see both of their breaths in the air around them.

Niall doesn’t know what they’re doing, doesn’t know why either of them are awake this early – but he quite likes seeing them like this. It’s adorable, if he says so himself. And suddenly he really wants to take a picture of them together – so he does. He snaps a quick photo, smiles to himself as he gazes downwards and the moment frozen in time.

God, he loves these two humans. Olivia is the best thing to ever happen to him; the scariest, hardest, most nerve-wracking and nail-biting and fear-inflicting thing in the history of, well, his entire life – but absolutely, 100 per cent, the greatest thing in the whole world. And Harry, well… Harry is a really close second.

“Hazza?”

Niall’s gaze snaps upwards, away from the screen in hands, and settles on his two greatest treasures in real time. Olivia’s sitting forward, now. Looking up at Harry’s face with wide, blue eyes.

“Yes, Olive?” Harry hums back softly.

“Is the sun waking up soon, yet?”

Harry smirks. “Well, sunrise is at 8 o’clock, so- I won’t be too much longer.”

“’kay,” she murmurs, settles back against Harry’s shoulder.

Niall thinks, briefly, that he could join them. He could shove his feet into a pair of boots – his, or Harry’s, it doesn’t really matter – and put on a jacket to join them. But, well, he sort of really likes the view.

“Can I wake daddy up after?”

“Tell you what,” Harry whispers, resting his chin on the top of Olivia’s shoulder. “How about I’ll start on making breakfast while you go wake your daddy up?”

“Will you make your pancakes, Haz?”

“Of course.”

“’kay.”

Niall smiles softly. Gives himself a few more minutes to watch his two favourite people whilst they watch the sun rise over the rooftops of the houses across the street, before slipping back up the stairs and into his (and Harry’s) bedroom to await his little girl’s retrieval.

They can have the sunrise, just as long as he gets to keep the both of them forever.

X

Nine.

It’s a Christmas tradition. Every Christmas Day, at half seven in the morning, Harry rolls out of bed and pads across the bedroom to meet Olivia out on the hallways. He makes hot cocoa, puts marshmallows in Olivia’s, throws one blanket over the bench on the porch and then wraps them up in a second blanket whilst they wait for the sun to wake up.

And every Christmas Day, at half seven in the morning, Niall pretends to be asleep. Watching the sunrise is Harry’s and Olivia’s thing, and he knows they’d invite him to join them in less than a second, but he likes that Harry and Olivia can have their own thing away from Niall – especially now that she’s getting older.

She’s nine years old now, and she’s starting to hang out with her friends more and she’s getting interests outside of both Niall and Harry. And it’s just as important to Niall for them to have their moments as it is for Niall to have his moments with her. She’s Niall’s daughter biologically, but Harry has helped raise her. Harry loves her and cares about her, he wants what’s best for her just as Niall does. He always has. And Olivia has always loved Harry to the moon and back.

Watching the sunrise on Christmas Day is their thing, and Niall never wants that to change.

It almost does this year, though. Because she’s nine years old and she’s upset that Harry wouldn’t talk Niall into letting her stay up just a little bit later now that she knows that Santa isn’t real anyway – and Harry had worried himself sick until he’d finally fallen asleep a few hours later that she wouldn’t get up to watch the sun wake up with him. Niall had assured him that she would, that she wouldn’t let a silly fight keep her from spending time with him.

And, well, as it turns out- He’s right.

His eyes are closed and his breathing is even when he hears the light shuffle of small feet tip-toeing across the bedroom floor, past Niall’s side of the bed towards Harry’s. Only Harry is already downstairs, having not been able to sleep.

“Daddy,” Olivia whispers, climbing onto Harry’s side, where the sheets are still warm.

Niall hums as he opens his eyes, pretending to be just waking up. He blinks a couple of times and rubs his fists over his eyes.

“Where’s dad?”

Niall’s heart still soars every time Olivia calls Harry ‘dad’, even years later. He shrugs. “Downstairs, probably. Making hot cocoa, I reckon.”

Olivia picks at a loose thread in the duvet over top of him. “Do you think he’s still cross with me?”

“He was never cross with you, love,” Niall murmurs. He reaches a hand out, brushes it through her chocolate curls. “The question is, are you still cross with him?”

She shakes her head.

“Then you should go join him.”

“Do you want to come?”

Niall yawns, shakes his head. “Nah. You two enjoy early mornings more than I do. I’ll join you later.”

“’kay,” she whispers softly. She leans forward to press a kiss against Niall’s forehead, before crawling out of the bed.

A few minutes later, through the silent walls and down the corridors of the house, he can hear whispered apologies and ‘I love you’s.

A few moments after that, he can hear the front door open and then close behind them – can hear them settle outside on the porch.

That’s how he knows that everything will be okay.

X

Sixteen.

Harry is usually the cool(er) parent. He’s the dad that lets her climb as high as her little legs will carry her, as high as she wants to, despite Niall’s paranoid protests. He’s the dad that takes her training wheels off before Niall thinks she’s ready because he and Olivia just know that she’s ready. He’s the dad that puts a pair of ice skates on her feet and lets her figure it out on her own, never mind those bar-things that are supposed to be there for beginners.

Niall considers himself pretty cool too, he’s just a lot more paranoid and worried than Harry is.

That is, until Olivia gets a boyfriend at the age of 16 – because that’s when Harry frets. That’s when Harry turns into a paranoid wreck, afraid that her having a boyfriend is going to take her away from them. He’s afraid that they’ll never see her, because splitting her time up between them and her friends is one thing but splitting time between them, her friends, and her boyfriend?

They’re never going to see her. And then time is going to fly by and she’s going to be in college and then she’s going to get married and have kids of her own – and then they’re going to see even less of her.

Niall’s worries are a little bit more present. They’re more along the lines of making sure she’s being respected, and being careful, and that she never, ever has sex ever. (Harry worries about those too, he’s just also of the opinion that she’s mature and smart enough to take care of herself.)

And then Christmas rolls around, and Harry’s greatest fear is Olivia not wanting to watch the sunrise with him. He sulks about it for the entire week leading up to Christmas day, and well into Christmas Eve.

“Has she said anything to you?” he asks through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Anything about what?”

“Watching the sunrise with me tomorrow.”

Niall rolls his eyes, albeit fondly. “Why wouldn’t she? Harry, just because she’s spending more time with _The Boy_ , doesn’t mean she won’t still want to spend that time with you.”

Harry shrugs, spits his mouthful of toothpaste into the sink. “I just worry that she’s lost interest.”

Niall’s brow furrows in confusion. He reaches out for his husband, both hands on Harry’s shoulders to turn him around until they’re facing each other. “What is she going to lose interest in? She loves you, Haz.”

“I know,” Harry sighs. “I just…”

“What?”

“I just worry that it’s different,” the brunette whispers, looking down at his bare feet. “You and Olivia have this unbreakable, biological bond on top of the fact that she’s so much like you that it’s uncanny. I don’t have that kind of relationship with her-“

Niall scoffs. “Harry Styles, you’re so incredibly daft sometimes,” he murmurs, running a thumb over one of Harry’s cheekbones. “She loves you with her whole heart. The fact that she isn’t biologically related to you has never meant anything to her. The both of you are just as bad as the other, I swear.”

Harry blinks, taken aback. “What are you talking about?”

“She’s always been afraid that you’re just going to stop loving her one day,” Niall says softly. “Sometimes she thinks that you’re going to stop having reasons to and-“

“That’s ridiculous,” Harry says, shaking her head.

“I know it is. But you’re just as ridiculous, you know.”

+

He knows he shouldn’t be eavesdropping, knows he should have stayed in bed the way he always does. It’s just that, well, it’s his _family_.

He’s in the living room, standing by the window to give himself a good view, as well as a good listen. Their voices are muffled by the wall between himself and them, but he can still hear them well enough.

“I was a little bit afraid you wouldn’t want to do this with me anymore,” Harry admits.

Olivia turns her head to look at him, eyebrows stitched together in confusion. “Why wouldn’t I?”

Harry shrugs. “I guess I just thought that you’d think you had better things to do. Or- Or that you just wouldn’t want to anymore.”

Olivia rolls her eyes, despite the smile tugging at her lips as she turns the rest of her body around to face him. “Dad,” she says rather firmly. “Did you honestly think that just because I have a boyfriend that I wouldn’t want to hang out with you?”

“Maybe… Did your father talk to you?”

“ _Dad._ ” She pauses to curl her legs beneath her. “I love you, but you can be really daft sometimes.”

Harry laughs softly. “You and your dad are so, incredibly uncanny.”

“You’re my dad too, y’know,” she whispers. “I’m your daughter. Nothing will change that.”

“Are you sure you didn’t talk to him?” Harry teases.

Olivia smiles. “I’m sure. Now, hush, because the sun is waking up,” she murmurs, pressing herself against the side of his torso. She rests her head back against his shoulder as his arm falls around hers. “I love you, dad.”

“I love you too, Olive.”

Silence falls over them, then, just as the sun starts to light up the sky’s horizon.

And Niall knows he should leave, knows he should go back upstairs and pretend to still be asleep when they both come to wake him up. Except, well, the view in front of him is pretty great. (And the sunrise is pretty good too.)


End file.
